Waking Up
by Things We Never Say
Summary: Kate wakes up in hospital to find that her world has been turned upside down. NOT a finale fic. Multi chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Hello!

Right, this is a little different to my other stories. It's going to be quite angsty, very different to my normal love of fluff. I hope I givce the angst justice.

It started off as a one-shot but very quickly got too long, so I turned it into a multi-chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

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><p>Even opening her eyes felt like an effort. The lights above her were far too bright, and her eyelids felt too heavy. Her whole body felt too heavy- she could barely move. When she was finally able to open her eyes, which took far too much effort, and her eyes adjusting to the near blinding lights she realised she was in a hospital. Kate was very confused. She desperately tried to think of why she was there, but her brain was too muddled to come up with anything. She also noticed her room was empty. There were no visitors in there with her. Kate's thoughts drifted to where everyone was. Surely if she was in the hospital her friends would be there all fighting with the hospital staff to get in her room. That was what had happened when she woke up in a hospital the last time. She tried to move to sit up by supporting herself on her arms, only to find they collapsed under her own weight.<p>

_What the hell is going on_ she thought. Kate heard the door to her room open and looked up to see a very surprised nurse looking back at her.

"Oh my God- you're awake." The nurse exclaimed. "I'll get the Doctor." The nurse left the room as quickly as she had entered it.

Kate didn't think she had ever been more confused, and much to her frustration she felt herself falling asleep again.

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><p>The doctor she had spoken to when she woke for the second time had not really told her anything, all that she knew so far was very disorientated and that it had taken two nurses- who had not answered any of her questions- to help her sit up. She was facing the door, watching all the gossiping nurses watch her. Something was going on and she needed to know what. Suddenly, a very familiar face appeared at the door. Alexis. Who looked just as shocked as everyone else she had encountered so far. Alexis burst into the room.<p>

"Kate?" Her voice wavered, seemingly questioning if this was real.

"Alexis- what is going on? Where is your dad?" The girl didn't answer her. Instead, she came over and hugged her. Kate tried to hug back, but couldn't lift her arms enough to do it. "Alexis." This time her voice was pleading. Alexis pulled away and looked at her; she had tears in her eyes.

"Kate-" The doctor entered the room and interrupted whatever Alexis was going to say.

"Mrs Castle, It's good to see you awake I'm Doctor -"

"Can you please just tell me what's going on? Why is everyone looking at me like I have two heads? Or why I can barely move by myself? And where is my husband?" She asked, interrupting the doctor. At her last question, she noticed Alexis tense in the seat she had taken next to her bed.

"I thought it would be easier to go through this with a family member in the room." He replied, motioning to her step-daughter next to her. "It is going to be a lot to take in." Her eyes pleaded with him, and she felt Alexis take her hand and hold it tight.

"Tell me, Mrs Castle, what is the last thing you remember?" He asked her.

"I was with Rick, we were going for dinner. We had just finished a tough case. Where is my husband?" Her voice was pleading; she could tell this wasn't going in a direction she was going to like.

"That was five months ago, Mrs Castle. You and your husband were in an accident." She felt like all the air had been knocked out of her lungs, she could hear her heart monitor speed up. She knew where this was going. She started to panic.

"No. No, please. Where is my husband?" She was crying now, she didn't care. She looked to Alexis, she was holding her hand even tighter now, who was crying too. "Alexis?"

"I'm so sorry, Kate." She said softly, looking to the doctor- who had told her before they entered the room that this would be better coming from her. "Dad didn't make it." Even after five months she still found the following words hard to say. "He's dead."

Kate didn't register anything after that. It was hard to breath. She could hear the doctor calling her name and Alexis begging her to stay calm. It was too much. The voices around her became more distorted and the only thing she was truly aware of was the horrific sobbing sounds that added to the commotion in the room. It took a few seconds to realise the noises were coming from her. She saw a nurse come towards her, who injected something into her IV.

The last thing Kate could feel before she fell asleep was a pain in her chest.

She was sure it was her heart breaking.

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><p>Alexis sat in the waiting room with her head in her hands. She had never expected this day to come. When the doctors first told them that Kate was in a coma and they had no idea how long it would last she had been hopeful that it would be short. The days became weeks, and the weeks became months. A part of Alexis wondered if Kate knew that her dad was dead and wasn't fighting to come back because she didn't want to live without him.<p>

At first she had visited every day, hoping Kate would wake up and help her rebuild their broken family. After about a month Ashley, her grandmother and Jim had told her it wasn't healthy for her. That she had to try and move on with her own life. At first she argued, and cried. She told them that her dad couldn't move on with his life, and Kate wasn't moving on with hers. At some point when she was sitting alone with Kate- who did often have other visitors- she realised they were right. So she made sure to visit about three times a week.

She just wished Kate hadn't had to wake up alone.

Alexis looked up and saw Jim Beckett and her Grandmother enter the room. She jumped up and pulled them both into a hug, receiving the comfort she so desperately needed.

"I can't believe she is awake." Jim said, his voice thick with emotion. Alexis had worried about him when Kate had been hurt. She was worried he would turn back to the bottle that she knew Kate had fought so hard to get him out of. Thankfully, he hadn't. Alexis was thankful for that now more than ever. Kate didn't need to wake up to find that she had lost her husband and her dad in the time she had been unconscious.

"I didn't believe it until I saw her." Alexis replied until she pulled away, "She was apparently interrogating the nurses to find out what was going on." She said with a small smile on her face.

"Of course she was." Martha replied, "She never likes not knowing what is going on." Her smiled disappeared. "Does she-"

"I told her." Alexis said quietly, sitting back down. Her grandparents took a seat either side of her, even though she was not related to Jim Beckett he had treated her like a grandchild since they met. Even to the point where he would spoil her rotten, much to Kate's mock chagrin and Rick's amusement. "It was awful. She had a panic attack. The nurses had to sedate her." Martha grabbed her hand. "It's not fair, Gram." She whispered.

"Nothing about this has been fair, kiddo."

"Does she know what happened?" Jim asked, grimacing at the thought of it.

"No. The doctor told her there was an accident. He told me the truth would be too much for her to handle right now. Which, considering her reaction to the news about Dad is probably true." She said sadly.

"She will have to find out eventually." Jim said as he squeezed Alexis' hand.

"I know. But, we just got her back. When she does find out that this was no accident we will lose her again." Alexis knew what Kate was like when she grieved. She went into herself. The death of the man she loved would be enough for now.

"She eventually started to move on from Johanna's death." Jim said quietly. "She managed to find something to help her out of the grief she was drowning in."

"What was that?" Alexis asked.

"Your father's books." He answered softly.

Alexis started to cry.

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><p>So, what do you think?<p>

If you like it let me know, I have chapter two basically finished.

Please let me know what you think- reviews make the world go round.

Things We Never Say.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello!

Sorry this second chapter has taken a while- I have broken my leg since I last posted and I have a full leg cast so lately I have been feeling very sorry for myself. It should be quicker next time because, lets be honest, it is not like I am going anywhere any time soon!

I hope I have this chapter in character. To make the story work I need to get across how Kate deals with her grief. I hope I have done a good job of it, so far anyway.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

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><p>Grief was something she had never been able to deal with very well. It had a habit of consuming her. She was able to hide her other emotions, she would put up a wall and try to block them from her thoughts. After her mother died she did some stupid things. Things that she was still ashamed of if she thought about them. Once she had managed to pull herself out of the pit she had thrown herself in she put up these walls to stop herself from doing two things. The first was to stop herself falling into a shame spiral she was sure she would never come out of, and the second was to stop herself from getting hurt again. She had convinced herself if she didn't care about people or love them she wouldn't be able to feel grief again. Her father's subsequent alcoholism only seemed to prove to her that she was right, no matter what her therapist said.<p>

There were few people who had been able to see through the tough facade she had created. Her relationships had always been relatively short because she could not open up to anyone. Even her drunken father had noticed the difference in her, once he told her that he didn't like the new her at all. The next morning he didn't remember saying it.

After years of being that way, Richard Castle turned up and flipped her world upside down. At first, she had been annoyed by him, and angered that the man who had saved her through his writing was an arrogant prick who only had one agenda- getting her into bed. Despite how much she hated herself for it, she found herself_ liking_ having him around. Then he started to change and she realised he was her friend, and then her best friend. Kate had been able to tell him things that she hadn't spoken about for years- like her mother's murder.

It had never been easy for them. Once she realised she had feelings for him so many things held them back, mainly her fear of being hurt. Esposito once told her Castle would not wait for her forever and he had been right. Then Gina was in the picture, and then Josh was. Looking back on it, it really had been a pathetic mess of stubbornness and ill-disguised flirting. It had taken for her to get shot for him to admit his feelings. She remembered what he said not too long after waking up in the hospital, but had put it down to him being afraid she was dying in his arms. How could he love her if they had been nothing more than friends- at best?

She got her answer when he was held hostage, again, by Jerry Tyson a few months later. From the moment she knew Rick was missing until she burst into the room Tyson had him in, with Esposito and Ryan behind her she honestly thought he was dead. Tyson had let him live once, she thought there was no chance it would happen again. In those long torturous minutes she realised she did love him and that she had done for a while. The only thoughts going through her mind (apart from how she would be able to tell Alexis) were that she had never given him a chance, and there was a strong possibility he had been her one and done.

When she saw he was alive she decided she wasn't going to waste anymore time. That night she went to his apartment and told him she loved him too. The look on his face was one she would never forget.

Now, lying in a hospital bed all she could think of was the time she had wasted. Yet again she had woken up to an empty room, but right now she didn't mind. She wanted to be alone. He was dead. The love of her life was dead, and had been for 5 months. She closed her eyes trying to stop the tears from falling but was unsuccessful. She was not entirely sure how long she was laying there for until she heard the door open, she opened her eyes to see her dad standing there. He was smiling at her, she tried her best to smile back.

"Katie-" He started, moving towards the chair next to her bed.

"Don't Dad. Don't tell me things are going to be okay. You have no right to," Her voice broke and she forced herself to closer her eyes again, "Things are _not_ okay." She finished.

She looked at him and he was sitting in the chair next to her in silence - waiting for her to talk. They sat like that for a few minutes before she spoke again. She looked forward, avoiding his gaze.

"When Mum died I was so mad at you for how you reacted, I had no-one else left but you and you were so wrapped up in your own grief you didn't realise what was happening to me. Every time I came home and found you passed out stinking of alcohol I would hate you a little bit for doing it." She finally turned to look at him, tears shining in both of their eyes. "Now I understand why. You wanted to be with her- with the woman you loved."

"Kate-"

"I love him so much Dad. None of this seems real." She looked away from him, noticing Alexis and Martha were now hovering outside the room wondering if they should enter or not. "How am I supposed to carry on living without him?"

Her question went unanswered as her step-daughter and mother-in-law finally entered the room.

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><p>Her next visitors were Lanie and the boys. It seemed as if her friends and family ignored the two visitors per patient policy. Kate found herself looking at Lanie and Esposito, who were standing near her bed with their arms around each other. She found herself resenting them for it. They still had each other.<p>

As she listened to them all talk about how much they missed her, and make small talk with each other. She would nod every now and a again or say something pointless so they would think she was absorbing everything. As she did this she could feel those walls going back up. She could not handle this feeling, it was swallowing her whole. When her mother had died she had felt like the world was ending, now Rick was dead it felt like her world had been ripped from underneath her. She didn't know how she was going to move on from this. She fell asleep thinking of broken promises and how there was no such thing as 'always.'

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><p>By the end of visiting hours she had fallen asleep, the small group of people that were in her room left as quietly as they could. They stood in silence outside all wondering what to make of the way the detective had been acting. Alexis spoke first.<p>

"I hate seeing her like that. I'm worried she's going to end up internalising it all and drive herself to destruction." Ryan, the closest person to her, put his arm around her.

"Don't worry- she's strong. She will make it through it." Esposito said in an attempt to comfort the young girl.

"Oh come on, _we_ are barely making it through this. How is she going to handle it?" Alexis responded. They fell into silence again. This time Lanie spoke up.

"Does she know?"

"No. The doctor said we should let her get over the stress of this first. Although, how he things she will get over finding out her husband has been dead and she has been in a coma for five months is beyond me." Martha replied, without her usual flair- the actress had lost a lot of it over the last few months.

"When are they planning on telling her?" Esposito asked as he put an arm around his wife, Lanie looked so overwhelmed by all of this.

"Tomorrow they are going to ask her for more detail about what she remembers then decide where to go from there. Until then- all she knows is there was an accident. I'm surprised she hasn't asked more questions." Alexis said with a wry smile.

"Yeah, Katie doesn't like being in the dark for too long. " Jim Beckett said as he smiled over at the young woman in front of him.

The six of them looked back at Kate as she slept, she looked troubled even in her sleep.

"It's going to kill her." Alexis said sadly, causing everyone to look back at her. "When she finds out what happened to them, it's going to kill her.

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><p>So, what do you think?<p>

I know Kate doesn't tend to open up as a character but she is very vunerable at this stage. Part of this story will about her dealing/not dealing with her grief regarding Castle.

Also, I do plan on doing flashbacks involving Castle and Kate in their married life before the 'accident'. I can only write so much angst!

Please review, they mean the world to me!

Things We Never say x X x


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